Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen, BWV 87

Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten in meinem Namen, , is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for, the fifth Sunday after Easter, and first performed it on 6 May 1725.
It is the third of nine cantatas on texts by Christiana Mariana von Ziegler, with whom Bach collaborated at the end of his second cantata cycle. She used a quotation from the prescribed gospel from the Farewell Discourse and closed the cantata with a stanza the ninth stanza of Heinrich Müller's 1659 hymn "". Its theme is man in the world depicted as a place of tribulation, in need of forgiveness, but with hope to overcome in prayer and love. Bach scored the cantata for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir only for the closing chorale, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes, two oboes da caccia, strings and continuo.

History and words

Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig in his second annual cycle for the Fifth Sunday after Easter, called Rogate. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle of James, "doers of the word, not only listeners" and from the Gospel of John, from the Farewell Discourse of Jesus, "prayers will be fulfilled". In his second year Bach had composed chorale cantatas between the first Sunday after Trinity and Palm Sunday, but for Easter returned to cantatas on more varied texts, possibly because he lost his librettist. The cantata is the third of nine for the period between Easter and Pentecost based on texts of Christiana Mariana von Ziegler. Her cantatas for the period deal with "the understanding of Jesus' suffering within the context of victory and love, increasingly articulating how the tribulation of the world is overcome", according to American musicologist Eric Chafe. Hans-Joachim Schulze describes her poetry as wordy and "rather unskillful". Ziegler published her text in 1728 in the collection Versuch in gebundener Schreib-Art.
The text begins, as do several others of the period, with a bass solo as the vox Christi delivers a quotation from verse 24 of the Gospel, conveying a "reproach to believers", referencing Ziegler's original text, which Schulze notes had received streamlining by Bach. The final lines from the third movement, an aria, paraphrase an additional Gospel verse. One recitative is not part of the printed publication. Alfred Dürr assumes that Bach wrote it himself to improve the connection to the following Gospel quotation in the fifth movement. The ninth stanza of Heinrich Müller's hymn "" is used as the closing chorale.
Bach led the Thomanerchor in the first performance on 6 May 1725.

Music

Structure and scoring

Bach structured the cantata in seven movements, beginning with a biblical quotation for the vox Christi, Jesus speaking. A sequence of recitative, aria, recitative is followed by another biblical quotation of a verse spoken by Jesus. It is followed by an aria and the closing chorale. Bach scored the work for three vocal soloists, tenor and bass ), a four-part choir only for the closing chorale, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of two oboes, two oboes da caccia, two violins, viola and basso continuo.
In the following table of the movements, the scoring follows the Neue Bach-Ausgabe. The keys and time signatures are taken from Dürr's standard work Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach, using the symbol for common time. The continuo, playing throughout, is not shown.

Movements

1

Similar to the cantata for the same occasion in Bach's first year in Leipzig, Wahrlich, wahrlich, ich sage euch, BWV 86, the text begins with words of Jesus from the gospel, sung by the bass as the vox Christi: "". It is accompanied by the strings, doubled by the oboes. The movement is titled Aria in some of the parts, but is formally free. It resembles a fugue because the instruments enter in imitation, and the voice sings a similar theme. Christoph Wolff notes that the "voice is supported by an elaborate polyphonic orchestral texture". John Eliot Gardiner, who conducted the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, notes that the reaction to "man's reprehensible neglect" of Jesus's promise is expressed with "stern, declamatory energy".

2

A recitative for alto, "", expresses the fear caused by failure.

3

An alto aria with two obbligato oboes da caccia is a prayer for forgiveness: "". The repentance is illustrated by sighing motifs. Gardiner notes a "mood of sustained reverence and penitence" and sees that in repeated slurred duplets illustrate "vergib", while ascending arpeggios in the continuo sometimes sound at the same time. The urgency of the prayer is intensified in the middle section by a continuo line in seven chromatic steps.

4

The second recitative is for tenor intensified by accompanying strings. It begins "". and ends in an arioso on the words "". Dürr speculated that this recitative, which is not part of Ziegler's text but inserted by Bach himself, for a less abrupt turn of the mood.

5

In the fifth movement, the bass renders another word of Jesus from the Gospel, "". This music is marked Basso solo in the score, but the melody lines are closer to an aria than in the first movement. The music is serious, with the voice only accompanied by the continuo, referring to the Passion as the price for the "comfort". Wolff notes the "almost hymn-like emphasis through measured, arioso declamation ... In the central fifth movement Bach reduces the accompaniment to the continuo, another means of underscoring the importance of Jesus’ words." Schulze interprets the accompaniment by the continuo alone as "a symbolic expression of the avoidance of everything earthly". The continuo plays motif like an ostinato, repeated at the end in a short da capo.

6

In response, the last aria expresses joy in suffering: "". Its pastoral mood, created by dotted rhythm in time, has been compared to the Sinfonia beginning Part II of Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Gardiner describes the mood as tender and lyrical but "spiced with momentary dissonance" when suffering, pain and despair are expressed.

7

The closing chorale, "", on the melody of "" by Johann Crüger is set in four parts. The pietistic text mentions "pain being sweeter than honey", and the music in D minor stands for "the necessary simultaneity in the world of suffering and of the divine love that ultimately overcomes it", according to Chafe. In the end, chromatic passages modulate to D major. The melody is well-known from Bach's motet Jesu, meine Freude with its several chorale settings.

Manuscripts and publication

Both the autograph score and the set of parts that Bach used ared extant. The cantata was first published in 1872 in the first complete edition of Bach's work, the Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe. The volume in which the cantata appeared was edited by Wilhelm Rust. In 1960, the cantata was published in the Neue Bach-Ausgabe, the second complete edition of Bach's works, where it was edited by Dürr.

Recordings

The selection is taken from the listing on the Bach Cantatas website. Instrumental groups playing period instruments in historically informed performances are marked green.